Marina di Malombra is the beautiful and sophisticated young niece of a count. She could be described in the terms used in a
1967 work : "dominant, secure, self-confident, nasty, violent, selfish, independent,
proud, thrill-seeking, free-wheeling, arrogant females, who consider
themselves fit to rule the universe". Marina becomes convinced she is the reincarnation of a madwoman out for fatal revenge.
Corrado Silla is a sensitive young man born into nobility, but now on the verge of poverty. He longs for fame in the world of arts and letters, but has failed. Marina taunts, scorns, then publicly humiliates him. Thus, Silla is ready to sign up as Marina's love slave. But his pride gets in the way.
This is the love story of Marina and Silla.
The intro of the restoration informs us that the original length of
the film was 1705 meters - over 200 meters longer. The vagueness of the plot may partly be blamed on missing footage, but the original inter-titles - alternating
between enigmatic narration, and dialog where it is unclear who is
speaking - certainly add to the confusion.
It is also possible that the film assumes its audience is already
familiar with
the popular novel that it adapts (although some critics
felt the novel itself was poorly constructed and confusing). So for
those of us that prefer to spend our time watching movies rather than
reading 500-page 19th-century novels, these English subtitles add relevant disambiguating plot details from
the English translation of the novel.
